


Fire in the Storm

by lokiyan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokiyan/pseuds/lokiyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill for ASOIAF kink meme - "Lost on the King's Road, Gendry provides shelter"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire in the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are love.

He found her huddled in the rain, thin arms wrapped around thin knees.

"Who are you?" he yelled against the roar of the thunder and pit-pat of rain against his skin. She didn't say a word, but looked at him with such haunting blue eyes that he stood frozen to the ground and suddenly he felt the chill of the rain as he had never felt it before. She looked away and turned, pressing her body closer to the stone wall of his smithy. Her skin blackened with coal dust and for a moment, she reminded him of a young girl he used to know what seemed like lifetimes ago. He sighed, the internal battle already won. "Come on in then." 

He turned, expecting the girl to follow, and paused when she didn't. "Well, are you just going to stay out here?" The rain was falling harder and had it not been so, he would have just left her out there. As it was though, she was already shivering from her drenched clothes soaking her to the bone. With a frustrated sigh, he walked toward her again, all broad shouldered and barrel chested, and she shrunk within herself. Gendry knew the look of terror, had seen it so many times at Harrenhal, and never wanted to look it in the face again. "Come on, princess. Can't have people dying in front of my shop." 

He held out his hand the way he had seen it done by lords and knights on the streets of Kings' Landing and, to his surprise, slowly and hesitantly, she placed her hand in his. His fingers, feeling suddenly clumsy and absurdly large against hers, gripped her and when she fell forward, he came forward to support her by her elbow. Her eyes were right before his now, and he had to clear his throat before walking her through his door.

In the firelight within his humble abode, he could see her more properly. Through the dirt, she carried a straight, narrow nose and a dainty mouth. Her hair shined red where it was not matted with mud and her dress... was that blood? He noticed her shift and realized how uncomfortable the whole situation was, and pulled out the extra set of clothes that he owned. “You should get out of them wet things. Change behind the screen. Water should be there too.”

She took the bundle from him gingerly, her fingers running across the coarse fabric as though it were made of silk. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice raspy from disuse. Even so, there was a certain melody to her voice, and it reminded him of the vague, blurry memories he had of his mother singing to him.

He sat by the fire, desperately trying to warm himself and dry off his clothes as the girl washed. It was wrong, he knew, but with each splash of water, he imagined the rough washcloth against her long limbs. Even covered in dirt, it was clear the girl was a beauty. 

She stepped out, her auburn hair dark and wet around her face, her body swathed in his clothes and he could see her face clearly now with skin as pale as milk. Gendry spent his days at the forge and hardly spent time with anyone, but now there was a stranger in his care, a frail thing by the look of it. He snapped himself out of his reverie and walked to the fire where a pot was cooking a bland stew. He held the bowl silently out to her and waited until she tentatively received the offering.

He gestured to the small wooden table in the corner and they sat in silence, enjoying the warmth that spread through their bodies from the stew. Her eyes remained downcast, and Gendry stole glances when he believed he wouldn’t be caught. The more he looked at her, the more unreal she seemed, like a lady in a song. But then truly, what would someone like that be doing in the rain in front of a smithy.

Without warning, her brows furrowed, her lower lip quivered, and Gendry panicked as she began to cry. “Stew’s not that bad, is it? I mean, it’s not great, but-” She shook her head and covered her mouth and cries with her hand. “Are you all right then? Are you hurt?”

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” she said, voice broken with shallow breaths. “It’s just-” Gendry almost sat back when she stared him straight in the eye. “It’s been a long time since someone’s been so kind to me. I’m just afraid...”

“Afraid?” She avoided his eyes again, her confession seemingly over and he didn’t press the issue. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be unkind to someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“I just mean-” Gendry felt himself burn bright at the cheeks the way he hadn’t since that impudent little girl who traveled with him on the way to the Wall. “I just mean a pretty lass like you.” He turned his face back down to his food and missed the way the slightest smile on the girl’s lips drooped at the corners. 

She cleared her throat, a dainty noise that cut through the silence. “I’m sorry, you’ve done so much for me and I never asked your name.”

“Gendry,” he replied, grateful for the change in topic. “And what do I call you?”

She smiled again but it never reached her eyes and chilled Gendry more than the storm outside. “You don’t,” she said softly. “That is, it’s not important. I’m nobody.” Just as he was about to ask her to clarify her puzzling answer, she stood to clear the table. When he stood to help, she waved her hand to stop him. “Please - it is the least I can do.”

He watched her from behind as she worked, her hair finally drying in soft, rolling waves down her back. He wondered what it would be like just then, to have a wife to come home to, to keep the house and hearth. It was never something he had considered - a bastard learned his place early - but just for now, he let himself imagine this mystery woman to be his mate. 

He offered her the bed for the night. He may not have had much of an upbringing, but he at the very least knew that women do not sleep on the floor. She insisted, however, that she is smaller and would be much more comfortable than he in the chair at the other corner of the room. Once he saw her tucked into her chair, a blanket settled beneath her chin, he turned to face the bed and took off his tunic as was his custom. He spoke a quick, quiet prayer and just as he was about to climb into his bed, he felt her hands on his bare back and tensed. 

He turned quickly when he next felt her pillowed lips on his skin, soft and warm. “What are you doing?”

Her face was a mask of shadows and light in the warm glow of the hearth. A complacent smile painted but Gendry was not fooled - there was no mirth behind it all. Without a word, she took his hands in hers and settled them flat against her small waist. Even as his breath quickened, she kept her movements slow and she slid his hands up beneath the borrowed tunic to feel the soft skin above the breeches. His hands, strong and calloused from his work, circled her waist easily and the sensation was incredible. He had never held anything so fine and delicate before, but he never wanted to stop touching her. His thumbs traced circles on her ribs and brushed the underside of her breasts.

And just as suddenly, he shook himself out of the trance. He was a man, certainly, and it would be difficult for any man to resist the woman before him, but he chose long ago to be a man of honor. He was a bastard, and not a particularly clever one at that and had little to offer, but honor was the one thing that he had that most nobles did not and no one could take that away from him. “This is all wrong. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Rather than retreating, the girl stepped closer. Without losing eye contact, she took the hem of the tunic and pulled it over her head, baring her upper body to him. Gendry had never seen a girl like that before, but knew instinctively that she was a fine specimen. “You think I’m pretty, don’t you?” She guided a hand to her breast, full and soft and heavy. “It’s all right, and I assure you I know what I’m doing.” She brought a hand to his face and leaned forward for a chaste kiss. 

He pulled away and looked into her eyes, the same ones that looked up at him earlier in the evening all haunting and scared. He walked away from her as though their contact burned him. “Why are you doing this?” he growled, frustrated and confused. He knew that in truth, she was a stranger, but he also knew enough to know that this girl before him, the girl who speaks such words, was not truly her. 

“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” She sat on his bed, watching the tension of his back as he stood away from her. “I could have died out there. I owe you a debt and you’re free to collect as you wish.”

He turned to her incredulously. “You think I did that for... for this?”

Suddenly self-conscious, she crossed an arm across her chest and looked to the ground, her hair obstructing her face. “Men do the things they do to get what they want and there is so little that men want from women.”

Gendry picked the abandoned tunic and threw it at her. “You were right, I want you. I’d be blind not to want you, but not like this, not as some token of thanks.” It was truly a sign of how young the girl was in the way she clutched the fabric to her heart. He settled himself in the chair. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but you should know not all men are like that. Some of us do the right thing just because it’s right. Good night.”

He closed his eyes, still irritated, and ignored the rustling of fabric on the other side of the room, assuming she had pulled back the sheets and settled in. Instead, his eyes snapped open at the sensation of her knees on either side of him, her hands steadying herself on his shoulders. She was completely nude. 

He swallowed hard. “I said-”

She cut him off with a kiss, this one rough and passionate, with teeth and lips and tongue. Her hands found his mop of black hair and tugged. His eyes rolled back when she mouthed his ear and he nearly spent right then. He forced himself to honor his word, however, and pulled her head back gently by her hair to look her in the eye.

It was shocking, the change in her. Life seemed to have come back to her big blue eyes and her mouth, swollen from their kiss, huffed shallow breaths that matched his own. She was so exquisite he couldn’t help but kiss her again. “What I said before - I still mean it.”

“I know,” she murmured between kisses. “And now I truly want you for it.” He pressed her close to him then, her chest against his, and he reveled in their closeness. Her lips still pressed to his neck, he hooked his arms beneath her knees and picked her up, a slender leg on either side of his body. She groaned when he kissed her shoulder and she steadied herself with one hand behind his neck and the other on a strong, muscled arm.

“Why? What changed?” He laid her down on the bed, a goddess fanned out on his coarse sheets. Her limbs glowed by the fire and her eyes softened into tranquil lakes almost overflowing with affection. It make his breath catch in his throat.

“You,” she said softly with a smile. “Me.” She tugged slowly at the lacing of his breeches. “Men, good men like you are hard to find.” He grit his teeth when his breeches fell away and she wrapped a hand around him. “All I wanted was to spend my life with someone like you and I never knew it. I just thought they were all like you.” 

He crashed his lips against her and climbed over her in bed, his fingers entangled in hers above her head. If she had continued, it would already be over. He brushed his nose against hers, still catching his breath and wondered again. “Who hurt you? Who could ever hurt someone like you?” He felt her jaw clench and her throat swallow and he let out a small growl. “Never again. I will never let anyone hurt you.” He buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled her scent. “I’ll cave their chest in with my hammer if anyone even tries.”

He was clumsy, his touch at times too light or too forceful on her breasts and the grip of her hips, but she guided him through. She let him feel her, wet and hot, and he reveled in the very fact that it was for him, of all people. This beautiful creature who laid him gently on his back and settled herself above him and rolled her hips in a way that drove him mad.

All his life, Gendry felt a connection to storms, rain and thunder roaring through his veins, never allowing him a moment of rest. Now, it seemed, the girl consumed him in fire. Fire in the red of her hair and the wet, exquisite heat of her cunt. And it was only because he had taken her in from the storm.

A hand stilled her hip and the other came up to cradle her face, his hand so large that it spanned from chin to the top of hairline. “Gods, tell me your name. Please, tell me your name. I need-Gods-just please tell me your name.”

He ran a thumb over her lower lip as she released it from her teeth and he thrusted up to meet her, the distracting cutting through her thoughts, her careful consideration. “Sansa,” she gasped. There was no turning back. “Sansa, my name is Sansa.”

It was a name he cried over and over again throughout the night.

It was only in the morning, when he woke alone and naked, that he realized that Arya had mentioned a sister named Sansa. A beautiful sister with their mother’s red hair...

He rose and dressed quickly, watching the dawn fresh from the rain beyond his window. He threw few things in his sack, for he had little to no items of value save his hammer and his helm. She couldn’t have gotten far, Gendry figured, and he had sworn to protect her. Even a bastard had his honor.


End file.
